How-to

Tech

Much of the data used to train algorithms is protected by copyright
restrictions in the United States, and courts haven't yet decided whether
training an AI amounts to infringement. Due to potential legal implications,
major AI companies keep the data they use to train their products a secret,
preventing journalists and academics from uncovering biases, as well as
stifling competition.

The most prominent AI corporations, like DeepMind, Facebook, Google,
Apple, IBM, and Microsoft often don't release the underlying datasets on
which the algorithms they create are trained, according to a forthcoming
article
about how copyright law affects AI bias to be published in Washington Law
Review.

Rogue pharmacies using Twitter to peddle powerful painkillers and
counterfeit drugs can be identified by big data analytics, a new study has
revealed.

Due to be published in the November issue of the American Journal of
Public
Health,
the study by researchers at the University of California San Diego
successfully used a methodology that identified tweets with specific
keywords that were advertising the sale of opioid drugs directly to
consumers in violation of US federal law.

Using big data, cloud computing, machine learning and web forensic
evaluation, the researchers were able to filter tweets using keywords
including Percocet, Vicodin, OxyContin, as well as fentanyl, isolate those
that were related to the marketing of opioids and analyse posts with
hyperlinks to external websites.

As another academic year got under way at Imperial College London, a senior
professor was bemused at the absence of one of her students. He had worked
in her lab for three years and had one more left to complete his studies.
But he had stopped coming in.

Eventually, the professor called him. He had left for a six-figure salary
at Apple.